Small Stakes Hold 'em Theory

[mdb]

Small Stakes Hold em July 2004 edition
1) p.80 Tight Games, Why is there instructions for what hands to play when you are small or big blind and there is a raise and a reraise?

2)p. 102 The text says a hand with one out has a 2/47 chance to improve by the river, so it is a 22.5 to 1 dog. However, on page 30, the chart shows that 1 out is 45:1??

3)p. 109 I don't understand the weighted average equation on the bottom of the page.

4) p.113 I don't understand why I would have 9 outs to beat someone with 2 pair if I have top pair.

[WhiteWolf]

Hello mdb. I'll take a shot at these. In the future, you may want to post questions like these in the Books/Publications forum, you'll get more focused responses there

1) Why shouldn't there be? Sometimes you will be in the small or big blind, you will be facing a raise + reraise, and the chart gives you guidance for what to do in that situation.

2) The 2/47 number is your chance of hitting with two cards to come, the 45-1 is the odds of hitting with one card to come.

3) That's a standard probability calculation. He is figuring how many outs he has in each situation, what the probability of each situation is, and then using the calcualtion to figure his average weighted outs. To use a simpler example, say I estimate he could have exactly 6 equally likely hands that I have 8 outs against, and 2 equally likely hands I have 4 outs against. My average outs against his range of hands is therefore (6*8 + 2*4) / (6 + 2), or 7 outs on average.

4) I'm not sure what hand you are referring to, as my edition has not hands on p. 113. Are you referring to the answer to hand 3 (p. 111 in my version)? If so, he details exactly which cards give you the win in his answer:

A[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] K[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] vs K[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 3[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] on a K[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] T[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 7[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 3[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] board. 3 aces give you Aces up to beat his Kings up. 3 Tens give you Kings and Tens, Ace kicker to beat his Kings and Tens, 7 kicker. Likewise, 3 Sevens give you Kings and Sevens, Ace kicker to beat his Kings and Sevens, Ten kicker. This totals nine outs. You should spend some time reviewing that section until you fully understand it: hidden outs are an important topic.

HTH,

The Wolf